What you say does seem logical, just so long as one of the next big new items is Best Buy (and perhaps other stores) being investigated and/or punished for turning a blind-eye, and/or not meeting their obligations to prevent fraud in the first place. Target is the focus at the moment. Who says Best Buy is, or isn't, next?

I don't foresee the end-purchasers, who bought a reasonable number of fenced items for personal use, without confessing to knowledge of the reason for the price, being penalized. However, this can often come down to state and other jurisdictional laws, which might not take into consideration anything more than the "letter of the law", no matter how arcane, or outdated, it is.

This is a great example of laws not keeping up with technology. Shouldn't buyers be protected from being able to wind up in possession of the spoils of a theft? Should it really be a crime, when the crime was not obvious, and the consumer not protected from being an unwilling participant?

If this takes off too much, I'd like to see a new thread for the matter, and keep this thread as the great resource it has been, which is a good thing, when the "Roamio deals" are 100% legitimate.

It's the technology that allows the cloak of secrecy about the path an item takes from TiVo to the end-purchaser. The old-school way involving real "fences" (shady people, in a shady neighborhood, perhaps in a shady brick store, with no proof of where they got their goods), was the way that would wind up with the last person holding the goods facing those goods being reclaimed by the authorities.

It's also one thing for say Newegg to sell a $199 item for $19, when we KNOW that Newegg is just doing an insane promo. It's something different, when the online stores pop up like the heads in a "whack-a-mole" game.

Now that this thread has exposed that "sophiamart" seems to be one of many fronts for the same "virtual fence", it's hard for anybody to claim complete and total ignorance if they got the link to the new front from this thread...

People can go back and forth all they like about it, and are free to do as they wish, like just dismissing this as alarmism, and purely speculation, then buying from "buycheapherebeforeweregone.com", and they may never be directly implicated, or directly affected.

It's all speculation, until the other shoe drops (or doesn't)...

You make some good points but near xmiss getting less than a 20% discount is not that unusual, if the discount had been say 70% maybe, but than again sometimes on E-Bay, if nobody is bidding on an item, I have bagged items for 80% off list (not TiVos). AX is a great card to use because if the vender can't prove shipment you get your money back, this has happened a few times for me over the years (again not TiVos) and I have no problem getting my money back from AX.

And explained it was $100 off the box and $ 100 off the lifetime service. "Since I have to buy the service from TiVo directly, would you price match the box".

The manager glanced at the web page on my phone asked if it was a bundle, to which I replied I have to buy the service directly from TiVo. She told the clerk to go ahead, she'd rather have the sale. After that was agreed to, I also asked if she would price match Amazon on a Mini. She said as long as it's sold by Amazon-- quickly looked at the web site on my phone --and agreed.

It probably didn't hurt that she was busy running around helping others. I didn't mention anything about the two gift card promos at the time. They already had the $15 card for spending $100 ( now expired) laying with the TiVo box. The $50 card rang up at the end. The clerk was surprised and I just said "that's great".

I'd be surprised if the order went through. Etailz had the Pro listed at $399.99 in mid-November, too, and a couple of us placed orders, but we all got emails within a day that the order had been cancelled because the product was out of stock.

I'd be surprised if the order went through. Etailz had the Pro listed at $399.99 in mid-November, too, and a couple of us placed orders, but we all got emails within a day that the order had been cancelled because the product was out of stock.

Just got settled in with my new Roamio Plus and Mini which are replacing two TiVo HD units.

Got Best Buy to match the email from TiVo for $349 for the Plus, and got them to match the $86 price from Amazon for the Mini. Wish I could have bought when they had the gift card deal as well, but you can't win them all.

Gawd.. These things set up so fast! Thanks to the person who posted the Comcast Cable Card hotline somewhere on this forum. I was up and going in 5 minutes from the time I powered up the Roamio and inserted the M-Card from my TiVoHD!!! Guided setup took about an hour with all the updates, reboots, and some dinner cooking in the middle.

The ones who got the pro from best buy are lucky as hell. My best buy stores only had the basic $199 model and the others I had to order online through them, and I figured since I am going to order online, I may as well go through Tivo and use some promo codes I got in an email.

I have to give Tivo credit. I initially screwed up and ordered a roamio plus w/lifetime and it cost $962.98, and I realized I had forgotten to enter my promo code after I clicked purchase. I called them up immediately, and they went into my order and put in the promo code and while doing so I asked if I could just cancel that order and put in an order for the pro as it would come out to be about the same price with the promo code, which they did cancel the original, and did an order over the phone and my total for pro with lifetime was $962.99, so with the promo code, and 1 cent more, I got the pro.

I am waiting for my delivery to arrive. It was supposed to arrive today, but UPS is still having issues from the weather event earlier this week so I should get it tomorrow, and I went ahead and got my cable card from Comcast the day after I placed my order, so I am hoping installation and activation of it will be painless, as for my HDTivo, Comcast was in my place for over 7 hours getting it set up(this was in 2008)

For me it would be $30 + $27 in sales tax, that $57, I took my chance and ordered the $399 Roamio Pro version, I got a confirm from Amazon, if the order falls through, no problem for me as I will get my money back.

I was able to get best buy to price match to costco for a plus over the phone. The plus price ended up being $350 with fee shipping. (I had an additional $100 bucks in gcards for bb)

How I did it was
Call a costco that is located with 50 miles of a best by
, ask them what they have the plus at,
Call best buy, tell them you saw it in a costco at xxxx
They'll call the costco and verify
Then give you the plus at the price matched mark with free shipping.

I was able to get best buy to price match to costco for a plus over the phone. The plus price ended up being $350 with fee shipping. (I had an additional $100 bucks in gcards for bb)

How I did it was
Call a costco that is located with 50 miles of a best by
, ask them what they have the plus at,
Call best buy, tell them you saw it in a costco at xxxx
They'll call the costco and verify
Then give you the plus at the price matched mark with free shipping.

That's pretty good you got them to match Costco.. I thought their policy was not to match membership clubs.

I only got the pro because of the promo codes TiVo sent. I would have been happy with the middle one because I still have the extender from the HDTivo that died 6 months ago, and figured I would simply add that to the one, but the promo codes made is the same as the middle, and I will plug the extender into it when it arrives Monday(Freiking UPS and their BS weather excuses for delaying the delivery)

We wanted the Plus/Pro because we already had 4 tuners with our two S3's and needed the 6 tuners. We knew we'd either upgrade the Plus or just get the Pro because we also wanted the increased hard drive space.

Depends on the deal you get. At list, there is a $200 difference in price, and a 3TB drive runs between $100 and $140 depending on what type of drive you buy. Personally, it is worth $60 to $75 to me to not have to open up the box. YMMV.

Got Best Buy to pricematch the Amazon price of $433.59 for the pro. No problems, although they did double check this on their own iPad!

Didn't want to risk going through Etailz, as they seem to keep getting further stock in, and one wonders how they can be priced so much cheaper than the rest, but good luck to those who are trying that route!

Got Best Buy to pricematch the Amazon price of $433.59 for the pro. No problems, although they did double check this on their own iPad!

Didn't want to risk going through Etailz, as they seem to keep getting further stock in, and one wonders how they can be priced so much cheaper than the rest, but good luck to those who are trying that route!

Best part is that I ordered one on Tuesday at $535.99 and it dropped right after shipment and I emailed to get my $6 back. Last night, my camelcamelcamel.com price alert went off to alert me to the $431.23 price and I emailed them again to get my $98.76 back.

Amazon will price adjust and credit back the difference within 7 days of shipment, so if anyone ordered one from Amazon and received it in the last 7 days, email Amazon to get your difference back, before they put it back up to $529.99 again.

I will be very surprised if Etailz ships at that price and I would be even more surprised if they do anything before Monday, since they're likely to be getting hit with dozens of orders at that price.